Tristan Coull v Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency — 2025

The Claimant brought a constructive unfair dismissal claim based on the Respondent's handling of his request to progress a formal grievance. The Tribunal found that the Respondent did not refuse, disregard, ignore or obstruct the grievance procedure on 19 December 2023, 22 December 2023 or 1 January 2024, but did breach its own policy from 5 January 2024 and continued to delay the formal grievance process thereafter.

The Tribunal held that the breach of the grievance policy was not sufficient to amount to a fundamental breach of the implied term of mutual trust and confidence. It found that the Respondent was still trying to resolve the issues and get the Claimant back to work, and that preparations for a formal grievance were underway, albeit slow and late.

In the alternative, the Tribunal found that the Claimant resigned because of the conduct of Mr Berrow, not because of any failure to allow or progress a formal grievance about that conduct. The constructive unfair dismissal claim therefore failed. The unlawful deduction from wages and discrimination claims had been withdrawn before the final hearing.